PREGNANT BY MY EX’S INFERTILE STEPBROTHER.

~~~ANNABETH.

“You’re pregnant, Ms. Collins.”

The words from the doctor floated across the small examination room, but they didn’t land. They just hung in the air, echoing in my ears like a foreign language I couldn’t translate.

I stared at the white plastic stick resting on the metal tray between us, the two bright pink lines staring back at me with unblinking cruelty.

"Are you sure?" I whispered, my voice sounding impossibly small. "There has to be a mistake. A false positive or something."

Dr. Evans gave me a gentle, sympathetic smile, folding her hands over her clipboard. "Blood tests don't lie, Annabeth. Hormone levels confirm it. You are roughly three weeks along. How are you feeling about this?"

Three weeks.

The math hit me like a physical blow to the chest.

Three weeks ago today, my life had completely and utterly shattered.

I shook my head, gripping the edge of the examination table until my knuckles turned stark white. "I... I can't be. I haven't been with anyone. Not since..."

I trailed off, the memory of that terrible, beautiful night rushing back into my mind with terrifying clarity.

Just twenty-one days ago, I had been standing in the grand ballroom of the Bentley estate, wearing a green dress and a blindingly naive smile. I had thought I was celebrating my boyfriend Julian's birthday, foolishly believing the rumors that he was going to propose. Instead, I had overheard him and his mother talking in the study.

"Claira is worth ten billion," Julian’s cold voice had echoed in my head. "Annabeth is a liability. Rio slipped the disinhibitor into her water. One staged photo in the East Wing suite and she’ll be too humiliated to ever show her face again."

He had drugged me. The man I loved for three years had slipped a synthetic aphrodisiac into my drink to frame me for cheating so he could marry a billionaire heiress without looking like the villain.

I remembered the sudden, agonizing heat that had flooded my veins. The way my body burned with a desperate, frantic need that felt completely out of my control. I remembered breaking away from Julian’s cruel laughter and stumbling blindly down the hallway into a restricted private wing, desperate to escape.

And then, I remembered the dark room.

I had crashed into a hard, unyielding chest. A man with broad shoulders, a sharp jawline, and eyes as cold and dangerous as a winter storm. I hadn't known his name. In the suffocating haze of the drug, all I knew was that he was cool against my feverish skin.

We hadn't talked. We hadn't exchanged pleasantries. It was a blur of frantic, raw desperation in the shadows of that room—a blistering, unforgettable night that ended before sunrise when I slipped out of his bed while he was still asleep, terrified of what I had done and desperate to run away from the wreckage of my life.

I had broken up with Julian over the phone later that morning, throwing his ring in the trash, refusing his hush money, and walking out of his life completely.

And now, twenty-one days later, I was sitting in a clinic holding a positive pregnancy test, carrying the child of a total stranger whose name I didn't even know.

"Annabeth? Are you listening to me?" Dr. Evans asked, her brow furrowing with concern.

"I'm here," I breathed, blinking back hot, stinging tears. "I just... I have a lot to process."

"Take all the time you need," the doctor said kindly. "Do you have a family you can talk to about this? Or the father?"

"No," I said instantly, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. "No family. And the father... I don't even know who he is."

Leaving the clinic twenty minutes later, the cold afternoon wind hit my face, doing little to cool the panic racing through my veins. The reality of my situation settled over me like a heavy, suffocating blanket.

I was jobless, having quit my assistant position right after cutting ties with Julian's social circle. I had emptied my savings to pay the deposit on a tiny, run-down studio apartment on the wrong side of the city. My freelance graphic design gigs were drying up because Julian’s family had quietly blacklisted me from half the agencies in town.

I was entirely alone. And now, I was going to have a baby.

"How am I going to do this?" I muttered to myself, unlocking the heavy metal front door of my apartment building and trudging up the creaking flight of stairs to the second floor.

I pushed open the door to my small, sparsely furnished apartment, tossing my keys onto the tiny kitchen counter. The room felt smaller today. The peeling wallpaper and the single window overlooking a brick alleyway suddenly felt like a prison.

I dropped onto the threadbare couch, burying my face in my hands. The tears I had been holding back in the clinic finally broke free, hot and silent tracking down my cheeks.

"Think, Annabeth, think," I whispered to myself, wiping my eyes with the back of my sleeve. "I need to find work. I need to figure out insurance. I can't rely on anyone."

The thought of Julian flashed through my mind, and I shuddered with pure disgust. If Julian ever found out about this baby, he would try to buy me off, or worse, use his family's lawyers to take my child away just to protect his pristine public image and his marriage to Claira. I couldn't let him anywhere near my baby.

The silence of the apartment was deafening. Just me, my thoughts, and the terrifying weight of a future I had never planned for.

However, the sudden, and heavy pounding on my apartment door made me jump off the couch with a sharp gasp. My heart leaped into my throat.

Nobody knocked on my door. I didn't have friends here yet, and the landlord didn't collect rent until next week.

"Who is it?" I called out, my voice trembling slightly as I approached the door.

There was no answer. Just another slow, deliberate knock that rattled the wooden frame.

Frowning, I reached up and peeked through the small, dusty blinds of the window beside the door.

My breath caught instantly in my throat.

Down on the street below, blocking the narrow, dreary alleyway, sat a fleet of three massive, pitch-black luxury SUVs. Passersby were giving the vehicles a wide berth, whispering and staring at the tinted windows and sleek, custom plating.

As I watched, the door of the lead vehicle swung open.

A pair of polished leather shoes stepped onto the cracked pavement, followed by long, tailored trousers and a broad, imposing frame. A tall man in an expensive, perfectly fitted charcoal suit stepped out.

Even from the second-floor window, the aura of absolute power and quiet menace was unmistakable. He adjusted his cuffs, his sharp, aristocratic jawline catching the afternoon light, before he lifted his dark, piercing eyes straight up toward my window—as if he knew exactly where I was standing.

My knees went weak. The breath rushed out of my lungs.

It was him.

I would never forget that face even if I wanted to. 

The stranger from the dark room three weeks ago had found me.